Hit Me With Your Best Shot - Death Becomes Her

Written as part of the series hosted by Nathaniel R. at The Film Experience.

This is going to be quick and dirty, because my sister's wedding has had me BUSY over the past five days. But it has also had me full of love, and I simply couldn't let this particular episode of Hit Me... to go by without showing love, because Death Becomes Her is a film I LOVE in all its brilliant, campy glory. Is it a perfect film? No. But it is a pretty great genre hybrid film, and one of the few outright great intentionally campy films, because going for camp is pretty much the only way to make a satirical horror/comedy not feel like an unfocused mess. Which the film actually might very well be. But I haven't seen it in a while, so I can't say for sure.

What I can say for sure is that there is a whole hell of a lot of joy in this film, from Meryl Streep's flawless diva-tude to Isabella Rossellini's flawless... well... flawlessness. When I think of Death Becomes Her (which is often), there are pretty much two things I think of: Isabella's slinky-sexy death-defying goddess (seriously, she just DEMANDS worship simply by just being on screen) and this little old shot right here:

NOTHING in the film makes me laugh harder, which is quite a feat considering how fucking funny the whole thing is. And actually, the VFX in this particular shot perhaps haven't held up quite as well as I remember. But Goldie Hawn plays it so perfectly. And Dean Cudney's camera knows that the best thing to do is just sit back and observe. Timing is everything in comedy, and Goldie's timing, along with the timing of the camera movement, are simply perfection.